Thursday, September 29, 2011

NPR Puzzle 9/25/11 - How I Wonder What 10-Letter Profession You Are

Think of a ten-letter occupation ending in "er." The first four letters can be rearranged to spell something that person would study, and the next four letters can be rearranged to spell something else that person would study. What is the occupation?

So elegant: ASTR = STAR and ONOM = MOON and "er" is just the noise you make while you're solving it.

Here are Sunday's photos of the birthplaces of 6 famous astronomers. How many did you guess? Be honest, now:

Pisa, birthplace of Galileo

Botanic Garden in Brooklyn, birthplace of Carl Sagan

Marshfield, Missouri, birthplace of Edwin Hubble

Lorraine, France, birthplace of Charles Messier

Den Haag (aka The Hague), birthplace of Christiaan Huygens

Woolsthorpe Manor, Woolsthorpe by Colsterworth, Lincolnshire - the actual house where Sir Isaac Newton was born.

Any surprises? The big shock for me was how few astronomers are really famous, particularly more modern ones (and I couldn't go for all pictures of Old Europe or I'd have given the game away). My image of an astronomer involves a telescope, and so the winner -- in my mind, at least -- is Charles Messier, who used a telescope not a lot bigger than what you might get your science-minded nephew for his birthday, and cataloged over 100 fuzzy objects in the sky. NASA's taken some awesome photos -- using the Hubble telescope! -- of Messier objects.

And for Henry, who's WAY more knowledgeable about Messier Objects than he is about American popular culture, Jackie Gleason was in a TV show, The Honeymooners, that had a catch phrase, "To the moon, Alice."

Our tie-break rule: In the event that a single round number is announced, AND two separate people picked the ranges leading up to and leading up from that round number, the prize will be awarded to whichever entrant had not already won a prize, or in the event that both entrants had won a prize already or neither had, then to the earlier of the two entries on the famous judicial principle of "First Come First Serve," (or in technical legal jargon, "You Snooze, You Lose").